His experience shows how a few ordinary words can create entirely different
pictures in people’s minds, and how a simple question for clarification could have spared him all that unnecessary searching for an answer. The drive home that evening, the shared conversation about daily work, the repeated mention of the psalm, the careful silence that followed, the return to the church, the quiet consultation of the text, and the eventual recognition of the intended meaning all formed a single continuous thread. In the days that followed he returned more than once to the memory of that ride. He thought of the many
occasions when a familiar phrase from Scripture or from daily speech had taken on unexpected weight simply because the listener had paused to consider it with particular care. He remembered the steady movement of the car along the road, the soft evening light, the calm presence of the nun beside him, and the way her words had remained with him until the moment he could examine them fully.
